Power Play
De Novo Dahl release their major-label debut
by Andrew J. Smithson
Much has changed since local pop troupe De Novo Dahl’s 2005 double-album debut, Cats & Kittens. Locally, there’s been a flood of fresh contenders on the rock scene, transplants and young upstarts alike, to keep the scene thriving. The friendly competition raises the stakes for a band like De Novo Dahl, who’ve faced derailments in the form of band implosions and van explosions, making their first record for Warner Bros.’ Roadrunner imprint that much more important.
The first taste of the new stuff comes in the form of the Shout EP’s pair of new songs. The title track immediately serves notice that they’ve come to shoot with the big guns for that major-label bread, wasting no time in tipping an ambitious hand. With a rich choral arrangement and joyously expansive, ethereal sound, it almost sounds like head Dahl Joel McAnulty has been drinking the Polyphonic Kool-Aid.
“It could almost be a theme song for the motivational speaker Tony Robbins,” McAnulty says, and he’s hardly exaggerating. It’s a bit weird to hear such an overwhelmingly positive sentiment in our times, when most bands are penning epic paeans of love lost and angsty tales of suicide, drugs or that no-good panhandling government of ours. No such thing from De Novo Dahl—just happy-go-lucky, get-up-and-go pop that bounces along affirmatively.
Cats & Kittens’ “Sexy Come Lately” sits between “Shout” and “Dance Like David,” another new track and one of the Dahl’s finest moments. It swaggers like Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” and also contains some of the more doggedly upbeat lyrics outside of a Hilary Duff song.
Besides the old track and filler remixes (here the band continues their habit of including gratuitous, oddball ’80s dancehall re-imaginings of every song), the EP carries with it the feeling of promising things to come.
“The basic philosophy is the same,” says McAnulty. “We try to write good songs and have interesting arrangements. For now, I’m the primary lead vocalist and Serai [Zaffiro] has taken a more active, upfront role with vocals. There’s more of a cohesion now.”
You can hear it plainly in the songwriting, once responsible for the band’s near-schizophrenic quality, and now solely in the hands of McAnulty. Time will tell to what end, but so far it seems to have unified the troops.
“Everyone in De Novo Dahl is confident that this is what they want in life, to be in a successful band who tours and records,” McAnulty says.
“We’d all love to quit our day jobs at some point, and put all our focus in making music,” adds bass player Keith Lowen. Another reason for their good cheer is the support of their largely metal-peddling label Roadrunner, better known for housing alt-rock and nu-metal acts such as Nickelback and Cradle of Filth, but now expanding their roster to include acts such as New York Dolls and Dresden Dolls.
“They have an indie-label mentality with major label resources,” Lowen says of the imprint. “And they’re into growing bands instead of seeing what sticks and discarding the rest.”
It’s a revolutionary concept, for sure, but one any worthy band would sign up for, especially if it coincided with Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann and Belle and Sebastian producer Tony Doogan mixing their record. With the EP out now and an album and tour in the offing, a new day is finally breaking for the five-strong collective. Barring any more unforeseen setbacks, the first pop band on Roadrunner’s roster may find themselves losing those day jobs soon enough, at least for a while.
They’ll be supporting Hot Hot Heat on a string of dates in September and October of this year, and even bigger things may be on the horizon.
“We’re preparing to kick out a slew of exciting new members,” jokes newest member Matt Hungate, very possibly referring to himself. “I’m going to make my love of cross-dressing public,” adds McAnulty.
“Actually, we’d like to score a film as a band,” he adds. “Also, a small symphony joining the band would be awesome. We’re in the process of experimenting with short films starring members of the band. A Sasquatch-finding mission is also in the works.”
Uh huh. What he probably means is that we can all look forward to much more dramatic glam-pop and squishy video game-ish remixes in the future, as well as the fulfillment of McAnulty’s promise that “the next record is going to be sell-out city.”
Before those moneybags start rolling in, though, DND will don the now-standard ostentatious stage costumes and begin their new campaign by playing a couple of local shows this week to properly celebrate the new EP’s release.
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